


Holding on to Solid Ground

by a_loquita



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-24
Updated: 2008-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_loquita/pseuds/a_loquita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything in life is more complicated for SG-1. But as much as they care about each other, they never seem to find the right connections. For Sam, those things become all the more apparent when she faces a difficult choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding on to Solid Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you mrspollifax for your amazing beta work on this.

  
Janet clutched her clipboard. Sam couldn't decide if it was a defense mechanism, like a shield, or if it was about to be part of an offensive strategy, which might include pointing to black type on white forms in a chart as a means of insisting that Sam accept what was there in black and white.  Before Sam had time to wonder what it was that required such props, Janet reported the news in as succinct of a way as possible.

Sam didn’t allow the surprise to show on her face, though she was sure Janet knew it was a shock even if her acting job was successful. She also gave Janet credit for not asking the obvious question and instead asking what Sam might do about it. Her answer was decided long ago.

“I can’t keep it, Janet.”

Janet’s acting job, attempting to cover her own shock, wasn’t nearly as good. “If that’s the case we could keep this to ourselves and—”

“No, you do what you’re supposed to do.”

“But if—”

“No.” Sam met Janet’s eyes. “Everything will be fine.”

It was the day after the mission to P7X-652. Sam knew Janet was simply doing her duty as the Chief Medical Officer in coming to Sam first when something had come up on a routine post-mission blood test. Now the doctor was supposed to immediately inform Sam’s commanding officer and General Hammond. But instead, Janet set down the clipboard, shield or weapon or whatever it was, on the lab bench.

Sam knew what would come next was not about Janet being a doctor. Setting her shoulders, Sam picked up the piece of equipment she’d been working on, making it clear that though she understood the medical doctor’s actions, Sam wasn’t ready for the actions of a friend. Not yet.

Janet hesitated for a moment, but eventually turned to leave. It was only then that Sam put her head in her hands and was tempted to cry. A few tears even managed to make it to the rims of her eyes before they were ordered to retreat. She refused to think about what could have been. She’d made this decision, to have this life, this career. Even when she’d once tried to reconsider it in the past, it didn’t feel right. It wouldn’t feel right this time either. The SGC and what she and her team were doing mattered most. She was willing to make the sacrifices for it, more than willing.

Sam told herself that it was natural that she’d feel this way momentarily when things weren’t in the abstract.

Momentarily.

++++

 _Two hours in, and Sam could tell that Jack was already bored with P7X-652. Daniel, on the other hand, had fallen in love. Sam had to concede that the paintings on the walls of the ruins were something that almost certainly belonged in a modern art museum, though she’d never say that out loud. She was careful to not take sides these days._

 _“Look at the textures!” Daniel said._

 _Jack rolled his eyes. “I thought you liked words, Daniel. Not picture books.”_

 _Teal’c walked the perimeter for the eighth time, every fifteen minutes. He did so without fail and without remark on every mission. The regularity of that always brought Sam some level of comfort, though she’d never been able to figure out why._

 _Sam moved over to where Daniel was studying one of the rock faces. “What do you think they mean?”_

 _“Well,” he glanced at her and then back to the illustration. “I think they’re meant to be fables used to teach a lesson of some sort. Take this one. There are men wrestling, and a group over here in a foot race, and down here might be a depiction of some kind of sport this cultured played. But here, this young man is standing all by himself.”_

 _Sam thought for a moment. “No pain, no gain.”_

 _“Something like that, yes.”_

 _The young man in the painting was not some stick figure, as Sam might have expected from a long-extinct primitive society. No, the artist had put emotion into the strokes, bringing him alive, until the man appeared lonely, sad, troubled._

 _“Or,” Sam reconsidered, “those who never try are destined to fail.”_

 _O’Neill piped in, “How about, here’s an X on the spot where the big space lasers are buried?”_

 _After he walked off again, Sam mumbled to Daniel, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”_

++++

A knock on the doorframe of the entrance to her lab forced Sam to look up from her work. Daniel stood there, one hand in his pocket, his hair disheveled, and his glasses sliding down on his nose.

“I was going to get some lunch.” He asked, “Want to come?”

“Ah, yeah. But first, there’s something that I need to…”

Daniel took a few steps closer. “Sam, is everything OK?”

“Yes, fine.” This was more difficult than Sam had suspected it would be. She looked away from him. “I need to tell you something.”

The moment Janet told her the news, twelve things went through Sam’s brain, and this was one of them. What Sam didn’t imagine was that of the twelve, this one would hurt so much. It seemed like it should be simple, an easy thing, like crossing items off on a checklist. And it was Daniel, after all, the one she told anything to without shame.

“Daniel, I’m pregnant.” But for the first time ever, her shame filled the distance between them.

“Oh.”

Sam almost wanted to laugh. She wasn’t sure how she expected him to react, but that was not it. And yet, it was so very Daniel. Her Daniel, the one who was there for her. Unconditionally. Demanding nothing in return.

She didn’t consider not telling him, not even briefly. Knowing Daniel, keeping this a secret would insult him more that the rest of what she was about to tell him.

++++

 _When the rain started, it didn’t start with a drizzle and build up. No, it seemed to go from sunny to monsoon in minutes. Puddles were forming in the mud, making their boots sink in further with each step, and it was starting to be trouble getting unstuck._

 _“All right,” O’Neill said, “that’s our cue. Let’s pack it up and go home.”_

 _Even Daniel had to give in on that.  This find was impressive, but not worth standing out in the rain for. His underwear was soaked through._

 _“Um, Sir?” Sam said._

 _“I really don’t like the way that sounded,” O’Neill replied as he turned around to see what had caught his Major’s attention._

 _In the rain, the pictures seemed to vanish, and it their place were words. Sentences. Paragraphs._

 _“Oh, brother.” O’Neill sat back down._

 _“Sir, the ability to produce this kind of technology that can—”_

 _“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a hand at his two scientists. “Go.”_

 _Teal’c sat down next to O’Neill, in the same positions they’d occupied on the boulder-turned-couch for the last several hours. Teal’c adjusted the rain poncho that didn’t quite cover his massive bulk. The movements were small by anyone else’s standards, but near grandiose for Teal’c._

 _“Don’t you start too,” O’Neill said._

 _“I had not intended to speak, O’Neill.”_

 _“Yeah, but you were thinkin’ it. That’s much worse. Too much thinking on this team as there is.”_

 _Teal’c tipped his head, and for a moment, Jack really thought Teal’c might keep quiet. Until he spoke. “Scientific minds and warrior minds are different, yet equal.” Another pause. “I have always thought Major Carter unique. It is as if she is a blending of you and Daniel Jackson.”_

 _“That’s a disturbing thought.”_

 _“Both of you can only relate to half of her. The other half is baffling to you.”_

 _“Yeah, sure.” Jack really needed a way out of this conversation. Fast. “So, how’s the weather on Chulak these days?”_

++++

Sam was always careful, but there were fractions of a chance of anything happening in life. Especially, as Janet had often warned the females of the SGC, since no one knew what things they might run into, eat, drink, or touch on foreign worlds that could negate the effects of Earth-bound birth control.

“Do you…” Daniel shook his head and a tiny smile appeared. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here, Sam.”

“Nothing. You don’t have to say anything.”

“OK.”

“I’m not keeping it, Daniel.”

He dropped his head at that, staring at his toes. Then he nodded slightly. “Right.”

It wasn’t fair to him, to either of them, but especially him. Sam knew every time Daniel looked at her from now on, he’d see this in her eyes. She wasn’t sure how she was going to find a way to live with that.

Sam also knew in this moment, whether Daniel realized it or not, he’d decided never to come to her bed ever again. No matter if they were both lonely, or one of them was hurt, or it was nothing more than a night of eating popcorn and watching a movie that turned, somehow, into making out on the couch until Daniel was buried deep inside her and she was moaning a name that sometimes was his.

She said, “I’m sorry,” knowing it wasn’t enough. But the right words to say in a moment like this had never been invented. There was too much pain involved in the discovery of them. “Daniel.”

“I’m OK. It’s OK.”

Sam saw wistfulness cross his expression so quickly that she wondered if Daniel even recognized it had visited. It’s not like she had promised him anything. They both knew no matter what they were doing, or not doing, their priorities would remain firmly intact.

Daniel looked up at her. “If it were Jack’s, would you keep it?” There was an instant, and then Daniel looked down at his feet again. “Do you need me to drive you somewhere, or something?”

“Janet will.”

++++

 _Thankfully, the rain had let up and only a sprinkle accompanied them back to the gate. Daniel and Teal’c were walking ahead of their teammates. Beyond them, the sky was drab, but no longer an impending shade of gray anymore._

 _“Another day, another dollar, Carter.” She tried not to smile. Jack was still teasing her about the clichés. This might go on for days._

 _Sam said, “Not exciting enough of a mission for you, Sir?”_

 _“No one got taken prisoner.”_

 _“And that’s a bad thing?”_

 _He made some gesture on his face that in others would have constituted a shrug. She wanted to laugh but didn’t. Yet she had the distinct impression that he knew anyway. Ahead of them, Daniel and Teal’c were debating the merits of anthropomorphism in childhood fables.  
   
In that instant, for some reason, Sam couldn't help thinking that they were all so much better in the field, better than any of them ever were on Earth. There was something there, something that wrote a tale about where they belonged. But she didn't analyze it._

 _“Dial us home, Daniel,” Jack ordered, as they ascended the final ridge and the Stargate came into view._

++++

Jack suddenly entered Sam’s lab, but halted several feet from where she was standing.

“Sam.” She noted the name that rarely came from his lips. Apparently Janet had seen him already, fast little worker that she was. “And Daniel,” Jack greeted, without a touch of suspicion.

Jack turned his head back to Sam and seemed to consider his words carefully. He never considered words before they came tumbling out of his mouth, and Sam supposed she should take that to mean something. But like everything, she shut it off and shoved it in a corner. It was safer that way.

“Ah, Carter, I…”

“It’s OK, Sir.” She put her stock ‘patient’ smile on. “I’m good.”

“Good? Well, that’s… good.” The eyebrow with the scar curved up. “Coincidently, who’s the um… lucky guy?”

The irony was not lost on Sam. That he should be the only one to ask the question no one else had. Janet had assumed wrong and Daniel assumed right, but both knew her better than this, not having a clue at all who the father might be. And who might be the one that would make her hesitate.

“No one that you know, Sir.”

Sam didn’t know if Janet told Jack what she intended to do about the pregnancy. It didn’t matter, really. He’d find out from someone, someone other than Daniel.

“Jack,” Daniel said, “Sam and I were about to head to lunch.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way.”

They joined Teal’c at their usual table. His tray was already piled with more food than Sam could eat in a week, another of Teal’c’s routines. O’Neill sat across from her and Daniel next to her.  One of them at each of the four corners, forming their perfect circle.

The talk over lunch was of the mission to P7X-009 coming up on Tuesday, and the fact that SG-6 had come back covered in purple slime yesterday, and that Teal’c had “Blade Runner” next up on his Netflix list. To everyone else in the lunchroom, SG-1 was the same, tight, happy, team. Nothing had changed. It seemed like nothing ever did.  
   



End file.
